"They attempt to reconcile Jews and Palestinians, speak to God and genuinely believe he answers them.” Hmm. Sounds like every American president for the last 50 years.
Joking, joking. I don't think they were really trying to reconcile the Jews and Palestinians at all. But seriously. Not to sound all Scientologist but sometimes I get a little freaked out when I reflect that if the Messiah did come, we'd certainly try to slap him or her (I'm banking on a her) in a mental ward. It's not crucifixion, certainly, but over-medication to the point of vegetation would be a rather more effective way to deal with her. No memorable martyrdom involved, no screaming at the sky about how her Dad should forgive her murderers because they don't fucking know what they're doing. Just some sort of firebrand transforming into a gently smiling lump. Gives me the willies . . . maybe I only think this because I'm slightly mad, but I think society needs a little madness to help people keep things in perspective.
Anyways, as far as Jerusalem Syndrome goes, I hope we can trust the doctors to tell the difference between faith-fuelled American yokel fatties who get too much sun and history and actual Messiah Candidates. It doesn't seem like such a difficult distinction to make, but who knows.
Speaking of madness, I am about to go all Al Pacino because tonight I am off to Stockholm to spend a little less than a week going around Sweden and Finland on a boozy press tour. The sun is out here in Brussels until after 10 and up ages before I am, even though my my internal clock wakes me at 6:30 every morning so I can make a nice café latte, blog, take care of my investments, stare out the window, think about funnies I want to Reclaim for the People (that is, rip off) from my business associates and conservative politicians (usually Boris Johnson; thank god the people of London were stupid enough to jettison that boring socialist mayor for a wise-cracking right-wing drunk), and generally ease myself into the day. So there I don't expect to see dark.
And with any luck at all I won't even have to look at a computer until next Wednesday, so I'll bid you all a happy week and leave you with Nick Cave's take on Messiah Wards.
martedì, maggio 27, 2008
lunedì, maggio 26, 2008
Kiss my ass and call me in the morning
This weekend, in between me morphing back into a human being instead of twitchy stressball, and in between the much more resourceful F-word making pasta and pizza bases again, not to mention ice cream (my hero), we watched Sicko. I had really resisted watching it because I abhor Michael Moore. It wasn't bad, though.
His usual problematic relationship with the truth in an effort to prove his central idea was less annoying than usual - though present. I know he's trying to cram everything he has to say into feature-length, but surely we could have been spared the minutes he spent yelping into a megaphone and the story about how he rescued the wife of one of his detractors from cancer to give a more well-rounded overview of the health systems in the countries featured.
I don't think it would have harmed his argument, and it would have helped his credibility, if he'd mentioned there are some real problems with the Canadian system in terms of access to experimental drugs, for example, and some real problems with the French system in terms of massive over-prescription and a complete systemic inability to usefully treat chronic mental illness. That doesn't make universal health coverage in those countries any less desirable, and it doesn't make the American system any less shameful. The thing is, I think it would have worked better as an aspirational film - picking out the problems and the benefits of each system - rather than as a 'dang, us Americans is stupid health-wise compared to them furrners' film. Because frankly, anybody who's really thought about it knows that already.
But Sicko was much better than his other two big budget documentaries and I was quite sad that he only made it the time he'd alienated everybody except the choir he was preaching to. Because it's much more important. Too bad. San Francisca used to be an emergency medic, and yesterday we had a chat about it - she said she'd have to bellow into the faces of stab or gunshot victims and car crashees 'DO YOU HAVE INSURANCE?' to figure out which hospital to take them to - or go through their pockets and wallets looking for their insurance cards.
How can anybody possibly think that's a good idea? How can you bear the thought that if a member of your family gets hit by a car, the first-response medic team is going to have to spend some of the time they could spend treating them or even just holding their hand to reassure them yelling at them about their insurance or going through their pockets, and depending they may have to wait longer than necessary to get to hospital? Puke.
His usual problematic relationship with the truth in an effort to prove his central idea was less annoying than usual - though present. I know he's trying to cram everything he has to say into feature-length, but surely we could have been spared the minutes he spent yelping into a megaphone and the story about how he rescued the wife of one of his detractors from cancer to give a more well-rounded overview of the health systems in the countries featured.
I don't think it would have harmed his argument, and it would have helped his credibility, if he'd mentioned there are some real problems with the Canadian system in terms of access to experimental drugs, for example, and some real problems with the French system in terms of massive over-prescription and a complete systemic inability to usefully treat chronic mental illness. That doesn't make universal health coverage in those countries any less desirable, and it doesn't make the American system any less shameful. The thing is, I think it would have worked better as an aspirational film - picking out the problems and the benefits of each system - rather than as a 'dang, us Americans is stupid health-wise compared to them furrners' film. Because frankly, anybody who's really thought about it knows that already.
But Sicko was much better than his other two big budget documentaries and I was quite sad that he only made it the time he'd alienated everybody except the choir he was preaching to. Because it's much more important. Too bad. San Francisca used to be an emergency medic, and yesterday we had a chat about it - she said she'd have to bellow into the faces of stab or gunshot victims and car crashees 'DO YOU HAVE INSURANCE?' to figure out which hospital to take them to - or go through their pockets and wallets looking for their insurance cards.
How can anybody possibly think that's a good idea? How can you bear the thought that if a member of your family gets hit by a car, the first-response medic team is going to have to spend some of the time they could spend treating them or even just holding their hand to reassure them yelling at them about their insurance or going through their pockets, and depending they may have to wait longer than necessary to get to hospital? Puke.
domenica, maggio 25, 2008
Medieval History 420
We have this phenomenal weed at the moment, and I have this phenomenal book to read whilst high: The Civilization of the Middle Ages, by Norman Cantor. I'm not sure where it came from, but at a guess it either belonged to Magnum or Luke Duke, who did history degrees, or to me, whose undergrad focus was on the Middle Ages in second year. Probably from the extra courses at the U of T that I took when I switched concentrations, since at our home college they didn't let us have secondary texts. It stands to reason I wouldn't remember it, because that year two was my year 'off', in the same way year three was my year abroad. Year two was when I figured out I could still pass if I was high all the time. I had fun and learnt alot on a human level but in retrospect, I regret it a little - we had some great professors who I apparently did my best to ignore. I'm glad I shaped up in fourth year.
But this is not the story of my particularly White Upper Middle Class regrets and rehabilitations. It's the story of this book, that's great to read whilst high. The author draws history in embracing, strong lines, demonstrating in a few vague but powerfully argued pages the unbroken chain of authority linking the Roman Empire with the Roman Papacy, or the wildness of Rhine Germans as one of the bases of the urge towards democracy in European culture. Drawing in one or two pages the emasculation of the Christian church as the notion of social dissent all but fell out the bottom of it in the interests of keeping the institution growing. Lovely, sweeping vaguenesses! I adore them when I'm high.
Apparently the author, Dr. Cantor, was quite anti-post-modernist. I'm sure he had great personal and intellectual reasons for that, but again at a guess I'm going to say it was because of the fact that he was happy to write such sweeping truthinesses, that are very strongly focussed whilst being too general to be wholly meaningful. Post-modernists dissect and pinpoint and agonize and can't conclude their way out of a paper bag, which to me is simultaneously a strength and a weakness - strength because a really clever person and a good arts academic should always have the consciousness that they might be wrong or that someone else's interpretation might be more apt - and weak because it's boring to read while I'm high. Not The Civilization of the Middle Ages. That's ace.
But this is not the story of my particularly White Upper Middle Class regrets and rehabilitations. It's the story of this book, that's great to read whilst high. The author draws history in embracing, strong lines, demonstrating in a few vague but powerfully argued pages the unbroken chain of authority linking the Roman Empire with the Roman Papacy, or the wildness of Rhine Germans as one of the bases of the urge towards democracy in European culture. Drawing in one or two pages the emasculation of the Christian church as the notion of social dissent all but fell out the bottom of it in the interests of keeping the institution growing. Lovely, sweeping vaguenesses! I adore them when I'm high.
Apparently the author, Dr. Cantor, was quite anti-post-modernist. I'm sure he had great personal and intellectual reasons for that, but again at a guess I'm going to say it was because of the fact that he was happy to write such sweeping truthinesses, that are very strongly focussed whilst being too general to be wholly meaningful. Post-modernists dissect and pinpoint and agonize and can't conclude their way out of a paper bag, which to me is simultaneously a strength and a weakness - strength because a really clever person and a good arts academic should always have the consciousness that they might be wrong or that someone else's interpretation might be more apt - and weak because it's boring to read while I'm high. Not The Civilization of the Middle Ages. That's ace.
Iscriviti a:
Post (Atom)